


Trellis

by Nadler



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, Plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/pseuds/Nadler
Summary: Phil Kessel was born with a noose around his neck, thin stalks of fiber circling his throat.





	Trellis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snickfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/gifts).



Phil Kessel was born with a noose around his neck, thin stalks of fiber circling his throat. 

It's just something he's always lived with. No one pries into it, but Phil touches it right before he puts on his skates, and it feels solid under his fingertips. It's not in any of his baby pictures or any others, not even ones Phil knows that he was looking right at it. 

Phil doesn't know what it means, either, not when Blake asks him and Phil and the vines have grown with him, skimming over his shoulders, circling looser around his neck. And Amanda asked, when she learned to talk. She tried to pull at it first, grab it with chubby fingers like everything else she could get her tiny hands on. That's the first time Phil looked down and saw _vines,_ green like spring.

Amanda asked only: "Do I get one?" 

Phil didn't know. They never really figure it out either. He doesn't even know what to say when he looks in a mirror and doesn't see it, but it's there when he looks down. Amanda and Blake aren't the only ones who can see it; there are others: a classmate in fifth grade, the goalie on his bantam team, and Coach Suter. Dad always avoids the vines, deftly, in every hug or hand on Phil's shoulder, but he's never said. Phil's sure that Mom would have offered something for chafing skin if she knew. 

It doesn't chafe, is the thing. If Phil never looks down, he wouldn't even notice. 

 

By the time Phil signs with Boston, it's done growing. There's a little tendril trailing over his chest, right over his heart, a little point. If he thinks about it too hard, he can see its tiny curve inwards. 

It pricks him, when he tries to move it, and Phil hisses, a tiny of blood welling on his finger. 

He touches the finger against a smooth section of vine, and when he takes it away, there's not even a bloody smear.

So he doesn't fiddle with it. His pads don't press it against his chest anymore than his shirts do, and Phil still touches the part at the back of his neck before he goes on the ice. 

 

"Nice tattoo," Tyler Bozak tells Phil, just shy of the first hour after they've met, luckily not noticed by anyone else.

"What tattoo?" Phil doesn't have any; he turns his head from where he was watching someone fiddle with tape on their stick. 

“The--” and Bozak waves vaguely. “Thorns? Never pegged you for a neck tattoo guy. ” 

It’s been awhile since he’s had a teammate who could see it, but Phil shrugs. He finds a smile and says, “I’m not, really. But in some other life I ride a motorcycle and carry brass knuckles.”

That gets a chuckle out of the guy. 

Phil waves it off. He’s always gotten along fine with everyone who can see his tag-along. 

When Bozak’s back up with the Leafs, Phil plays like he's known the guy forever, and he calls him Bozie. 

It grows more thorns in Toronto, and Phil's careful not to prick himself. It’s easier than avoiding the Toronto media, by far, and at least it’s honest about being out for his blood. 

Bozie’s his best friend when Phil leaves the Leafs, and Phil had made his peace with being a Leaf forever. But there was something culminating; Phil’s not an omen and portents guy, but there's a green bud on his vines, where the sharpest point used to be over his heart. 

Phil wonders if it'll ever grow into something. 

He's not about to slaughter a chicken or nick himself shaving to find out. 

 

In Pittsburgh, there are _three_ people who can see it. 

Malkin. Hornqvist. Bonino. 

“Oh,” Trevor Daley says, when he swings by Phil on the “get the new guy oriented” tour. His eyes are on Phil's neck. 

That's another. 

It turns out, Phil's never met another person like him his whole life. Until now, when Daley sits down in the stall next to Phil and pulls down on his sock to show a little tangle on and around his foot. There's a couple of flowers on it, right by the anklebone. 

Phil wants to ask what they're for because he can see a flash of red on his own chest. 

“It's my lucky ankle,” Daley says. He has a wide grin for someone who's the new guy. 

“Feels like my neck’s on the chopping block sometimes.”

“Exactly.” Daley swings his arm over Phil's shoulder like they're old friends, already, when they get on the ice for practice. 

Phil has a good feeling about this team.

No one's ever made a big deal about it.

Except. Once, Geno brushes against the vines and scores a hat trick.

“It's good luck!” Geno yells, afterwards, in the enthusiastic celly after, finding Phil to thank him for the assist. “Plants!”

“That's right,” Dales answers, joining in late to the hug, but Phil's not sure if he heard, but a hat trick is a thing to celebrate. 

There's a bigger flash of red on Phil's chest when they make the playoffs. Phil doesn't want it to mean anything. 

They win the Cup. They win the Cup.

He drinks too much and not enough out of the Cup. 

It's only when his hangover clears, hand reaching up to cradle his head. He moves to scratch the back of his neck, where the vines and his skin meet, but Phil feels nothing but skin, his pulse underneath that.

He looks down. The lines of the red petals look like ink over his heart.


End file.
